My two grains of salt:
Wealth is a potential field. Whenever there are inequalities, there are (wealth diffusion) phenomena that act to restore equilibrium. For inequality to be maintained, there has to be a barrier which is proportional to the inequality.
Phenomena that act to maintain wealth equilibrium can be peaceful or legal, such as high social mobility and taxes/social investment, or violent or illegal such as crime (e.g. theft) and war. Somewhere in the middle are phenomena such as migration.
Barriers (to prevent wealth equilibrium restoration) are related to security, e.g. guards, burglary alarms, weapons, immigration barriers, apartheid, big-brother controls, dictatorships, etc.
Inequality is best when peaceful restoration mechanisms are available. Inequality maintained by barriers cannot increase infinitely or be sustained for ever. Something's gotta give.

The political balancing act suggested between inequality, opportunity and growth as a way to win the White House in the upcoming election may be the right formula to get votes, but, it is the wrong antidote for what is wrong with America...creating more opportunities does not necessarily translate to less inequality. The creation of more service economy jobs when full time work are paying 10% less now than in the past does not change anything...having more growth and no change in the Pinata Syndrome that a free economy is with the Rich many income streams (multiple grabbing hands under the pinata) vs what the bottom have (their job as their main income source-savings almost zero) does not help either. The epiphany by the Harvard trained individual running for Congress that "no tycoon can claim sole responsibility for his fortune because of public goods necessary to succeed" should drive Mr. Obama's re-election bid. We need in America a re-distribution of Wealth. The result of surveys that show that Americans are not too concerned with inequality and want more opportunities and growth and believe the American Dream is alive and well are probably Republicans and Tea Party supporters which for the most part are in the top 27% of the income pyramid...the people that took these surveys did not take random samples from the population that truly represented the country as they should have...my guess they were afraid to approach people in some sections of the towns and cities they visited...

Lao Tzu wrote around the 6th century BC in ‘Tau Teh Ching’, Chapter 77

“Perhaps the Way of Heaven may be likened to the stretching of a composite bow! The upper part is depressed, while the lower is raised. If the bow-string is too long, it is cut short: if too short, it is added to.

The Way of Heaven diminishes the more-than-enough to supply the less-than-enough. The way of man is different; it takes from the less-than-enough to swell the more-than-enough.

Who except a man of the Tao (Way) can put his superabundant riches to the service of the world.

Therefore, the Sage does his work without setting any store by it, accomplishes his task without dwelling upon it. He does not want his merits to be seen.”

"In 1970, the pre-tax pay of a top American CEO was about 30 times higher than that of the average worker; today it is 263 times higher." - Robert Skidelsky wrote in his article 'The Bad Society'.

"The attitude of indifference to income distribution is in fact a recipe for economic growth without end, with the rich, very rich, and super-rich drawing ever further ahead of the rest. This must be wrong for moral and even practical reasons. In moral terms, it puts the prospect of the good life perpetually beyond reach for most people. And, in practical terms, it is bound to destroy the social cohesion on which democracy – or, indeed, any type of peaceful, contented society – ultimately rests." - Robert Skidelsky wrote in his article 'The Bad Society'.

The problem for many in the US is that they know virtually nothing about other parts of the world, and therefore cannot conceive of a system that is much different from the one they have.

As a consequence, their system, although it makes some people extremely rich and has produced economic standstill for the middle class and deterioration for the worst off over the past decades, remains largely beyond discussion.

It takes only a few postings here to see that the discussion often gets stuck at the level of individuals, individual behaviour and individual responsibility. "If people behaved responsibly (complete college, delay children till they are married, are straight, pray every night, wash their feet, etc.) they wouldn't be poor. If we support them, they'd never learn."

Very very TRUE -> "The problem for many in the US is that they know virtually nothing about other parts of the world, and therefore cannot conceive of a system that is much different from the one they have."

Things get stuck at the individual level because there is no collective level that most people accept. Once upon a time, there was a national spirit and a concept of civic duty, but that has been greatly diminished for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is immigration, and by that I mean illegal immigration. A national spirit can only be sustained with a nation - and a prerequisite "them" vs. "us" attitude. This distinction is lost when the government refuses to enforce proper border security and allows tens of millions of poor illegal immigrants to reside in the country and flout our laws. Then they talk of amnesty or various pathways to citizenship for people who knowingly broke our laws. What value is patriotism if citizenship is so easily given away? (Whether allowing such illegal immigration is moral or ethical or beneficial in other ways is another debate entirely)

The second reason is even uglier - racialism and yes, racism. Despite the talk, if the USA is a "melting pot", it is at a very low temperature and not all of the things in the pot are melting. Analogies aside, whenever ethnic communities form and tenaciously refuse to assimilate, it sows discord and distrust. It creates an "Other" within the nation, and wrecks national harmony.

This is only amplified when the government give preferential treatment to these other groups at the expense of the majority, and worst of all, the preferential treatment just makes the other group more and more dependent on the government teat. Look how well affirmative action has worked for the African-American community - we're already multiple generations in and the college graduation rate is still significantly below all other segments of the population. Even those that do get a college education are tainted by the widely-held perception that they didn't really earn their diploma.

Overall, we're extremely internally divided, and with our current political environment any proposed government program that is seen as benefiting one group over another is very unlikely to pass.

On a personal note as one of the "evil" white males, every time an application for an job with any remote tie to the government asks me for my race, ethnicity, and sex so that they can discriminate against me, the irrationally anti-government part of my brain gets a bit more dominant and I wish a bit more fervently that it all comes crashing down so we can rebuild it in a just manner.

I agree with some of your points, but blaming illegals for a lack of a collective national brain wavelength is ridiculous.
This country was built on immigration. Immigrants have a strong work ethic and do jobs that the average American wouldn’t do for double the wage. I side with Republicans on almost everything except for this. Lets get over this age-old argument that never gets us anywhere.
Building a 10-foot wall isn’t going to do anything; think about who is building it. But go ahead and spend more money as you complain about the rising deficit.

I live in Toronto, but got my MBA at Wharton, only passing up on immigrating to the US where I had several job offers because my family preferred Canada on the basis of its greater success in the domain of social harmony. But I don't want to trumpet Canada's commitment to 'multi-culturism' over the US's to 'melting pottery', Belisarius85, because I think those respective 'commitments' are more extensions of historical habits.

I think this because I had the good fortune to be sent to manage a problem-solving task force for Mitsubishi Juko (Heavy Industries) for a year, and on my return, felt that even Toronto was a 'savage' place by comparison with what I experienced as an Indian-born Englishman with a Scottish name almost completely illiterate in Japanese amongst the gentle and faithful folk of Japan. Nor do I want to trumpet even that diagnostic feeling because I soon came to recognize that all my various feelings on the why's and wherefore's of social harmony and hypotheses regarding what social compacts might work came down to the question of "how does one lead by example the communication styles one finds in one's current work/market environment toward one that consistently AND SAFELY combines the two principles of authenticity and empathy?"

Trying to answer that question was how I awoke to the reality that I had to work from Erich Fromm's insights about disconnecting hierarchy vs. connecting intimacy that he put into his "Escape from Freedom" toward an architecture for English conversational exchanges that is both break-down proof and efficiently productive of 'all-in' solutions.

Authentix Coaches' conclusions in this field remain a work-in-progress from a documentation point of view; but you can explore their tentacles on the Internet under the terms 'Eye-Zen English' and, more recently, 'problem-solving conversation'.

"The problem for many in the US is that they know virtually nothing about other parts of the world"

No kidding. I lived a good part of my life in other country and have travelled the world over - Americans have no idea how good they've had it. From its political system, to the freedoms enjoyed, the humongous markets, the ease of achievements, the availabilty of goods, the space and large terrirtory (not like those small European countries), the multiple weather (you can be in a beach in Miami on january and flight to Denver to ski); you didnt do well in California, then move to Texas, or whatever...; a big spacious country with all kinds of landscape, markets, etc...

When I hear someone like Obama or those spoiled OWSers saying "going back to same failed policies", which policies are those? the ones that made the US the most successful in the last 200 years? or the abuse of the Real Estate market resulting from bad social oriented policies (like that of Franks and Clinton demanding businesses to give loans to people that couldnt pay it) - it angers me!

Americans have no idea what they are tampering with!So you are right - Modern americans act like if they didnt know about the failed socialist systems in the world. And dont bother with Sweden - 4 million swedes, all blond and white, do not give me any point of reference to compare with the US. They all fit in Minnesota.

How encouraging to learn that most Americans want more equality. This sentiment is very likely shared by most people in the world, so the next question logically is: how is this to be done?

Before trying to come up with solutions, it may be wise to investigate the root causes of inequality first.

First of all, let us dispel that myth that differences are explained by genetics, as in the differences between athletes in the Olympic Games. If a bank CEO earns $1,000,000 and an unskilled labourer $500 does that mean that the CEO was born 2,000 times more intelligent? It seems highly unlikely.

Classical economic theory states that each person receives his/her marginal product. How may this be consistent with the great inequalities we observe? Let us consider the following issues:

1) Oligopolistic Markets. Each one receiving his/her marginal product only occurs in competitive markets. However, most real markets are oligopolistic in which the owners of capital receive more than the marginal product of capital; they receive the markup on marginal cost, i.e. economic profits.

2) Capital obtained by Violence. If a person owns capital through hard work and saving then it seems reasonable and fair that he/she receives income for it. However, it seems that this is often not the case. During the colonial period of North and South America, land and mineral wealth was often obtained by means of violence and
warfare, not fair trade. These assets were then passed on to the descendents of the early settlers, thus perpetuating this initial illegitimate ownership of capital.

3) Concentration of Capital. Even in competitive markets, education and skills cannot be accumulated indefinitely by one individual whereas capital can. Therefore if capital has few owners, each owner will possess a very large amount of capital and hence receive a very large income (the normal return of capital) relative to the
income that each worker receives due to his/her individual skills and education. This lends support to the previous point. Has a billionaire really been so productive at working that he/she was able to save up billions of dollars?! It seems highly improbable. Therefore, ownership of his/her billions appears undeserved.

4) Ownership of Capital. There is also the question of whether ownership of capital is legitimate at all in the first place, even if it is obtained by honest means. Modern society no longer accepts ownership of people (slavery) nor does it accept ownership of vital common goods like the oceans or the air that we all breathe. Imagine if we all had to pay someone for the right to breathe! Why then is it legitimate to own capital goods, that are not for private use? Not only Marxist theory proposes the abolition of private property of capital; it is possible that this principle may be also be endorsed by non-Marxists.

Finally, I venture to say that the root causes of inequality are:

1) Selfishness. Since Adam Smith's "invisible hand" we have all come to believe that our own selfishness produces the most efficient outcome, so this has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if we all really cared about other people, would there be such extreme poverty in the world?

2) The lack of a real meaning and purpose in life. If we have fulfillment and meaning in our lives, do we really need bonuses of 40 million dollars to be happy? Once we have enough to live a decent life of well-being, do we really need more and more indefinitely? It seems to me that inner emptiness and spiritual poverty must be the root of irrational greed.

If love for all human beings becomes the norm, and we all find more fulfilling purposes to our lives than merely accumulating objects ("mountains of things" in the words of Tracy Chapman), then maybe loneliness, crime, drug-addiction and poverty will all disappear. Maybe, someday...

You state that one of the root causes of inequality is selfishness. I cannot argue with that. However, we wouldn't even need government if men were all perfectly good and selfless, to paraphrase James Madison.

The fact is that we ARE selfish and this fact is not going to change anytime soon. We have to deal with with our flaws, and in some ways that is capitalism's virtue: it has the potential to create some amount of good out of our natural, selfish tendencies.

Your final paragraph seems heartfelt, and I wish it were possible, but I doubt that love for all human beings will ever become the norm...or even that common.

Jerome Smith: "If love for all human beings becomes the norm, and we all find more fulfilling purposes to our lives than merely accumulating objects ("mountains of things" in the words of Tracy Chapman), then maybe loneliness, crime, drug-addiction and poverty will all disappear. Maybe, someday..."

Belisarius85 commented: "... I wish it were possible, but I doubt that love for all human beings will ever become the norm...or even that common."

Belisarius is right, yet the reality is that we are making progress as a species toward Jerome Smith's 'nirvana' in that (a) we rarely physically crucify any more, and (b) our population as a species continues to grow. Nevertheless, some apocalypse does seem everyday more likely, and so there would be cause for mass despair if it were not also true that we must be getting better at communicating or we would all be living in abject fear of WWIII breaking out ...

My contribution to making sure that our capacities as a species to continue our progress in achieving genuine communication (usually n steps forward followed by n-1 steps backward) is (a) to observe that we only (!) need, as a species, to learn to combine authenticity and empathy in our communications better than in the past, and (b) to point out that:

Exchange of honest I-statements of the form "I have 'X emotion' now" (IHXEN, where we limit 'X emotion' to honest selection of a noun phrase) provides us -- in moments when we are feeling a potentially overwhelming challenge in a serious problem-solving conversation -- with the simplest means accessible to anyone having basic proficiency in English of experiencing both the relief of verbalizing something and the best each of us can in that immediately challenging moment contribute of our authentic selves without risk of letting out something that might be destructive of trust, and (c) offer demonstrations of the practicability of IHXEN Exchanges.

I agree with you that we are selfish. However, I am sure that we can change if we really want to, based on my personal experience and the testimonies of many people I know.

Actually, when we talk of learning to genuinely care about the welfare of other human beings, it turns out that that is the best thing that one can do for oneself. We feel happier when we care about others, so this could be called "selfishness" too. Of course, it is a more elevated form, as opposed to the primitive naive form of selfishness. So really we are talking about evolution, from a prehistoric form of individualism to a more elevated system of relationships based on cooperation and team-spirit.

Yes, quite so, I'm sure a lot of conflict and violence, both domestic and global, could be avoided if we communicated more honestly and openly with each other.

Direct and sincere communication helps us to understand each other and put ourselves in the other person's shoes, and often understand that he/she is not a bad guy really, but views reality differently. In fact, if we are sincere with ourselves, we may admit that much of what we criticize in others, we have done ourselves.

How would people respond if they were told that the GDP/capita of the country with the pie chart on the left was 10x the GDP/capita of the country with the pie chart on the right? Also that the chart on the right was from a communist dictatorship with a secret police, human rights abuses, average lifespan of 65, killing fields, gulag, and widespread misery?

That would pollute the study by introducing too many variables. What the study asks, is essentially, "All other things being equal, which distribution do you prefer?"
Additionally, various phenomena such as killing fields, gulags, human rights abuses, and an order of magnitude less GDP per capita, do not really comport with Swedish of other social democratic states in the West.
On the other hand, you can rest assured that the top 1% in Soviet Russia from the Brezhnev era onward did quite well in concentrating their wealth. We could expect various kleptocracies and perhaps even the North Korean monarchy to likewise take care of the people at the top. But I am somewhat assured that Americans, like North Koreans, have been exposed to adequate agitprop to believe such concentration of wealth is justified.

So, 1% Russia and 1% America are the same, because they each have 1%? That's ridiculous, hardly even worth responding to. And if you want to go live is Sweden go ahead...by the way why haven't you done so? Perhaps it's because you like good old America so much, but you just want to whine and complain about the 1% like Steve Jobs who started the company you work for. Ridiculous and sour grapes, that is the sum total of your response, my friend.

The biggest obstacle to American equality is that Americans are disproportionately delusional regarding their entrepreneurial abilities and opportunities in comparison with the rest of the world. They are deluded by the idea that they possess exceptional entrepreneurial skills, and live in an exceptional country which provides them with exceptional opportunities. 3x as many Americans see themselves as future business owners as the citizens of other nations do. Then middle-age arrives and reality sets in. I was robbed! I coulda bin a contender! Them damned whites, browns, blacks, socialists!

(turbo)Cracker,please... didn't you know that 72.5678 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot by 3x as many dentists who prefer Crest over the other leading brands? And 95% of all politicians ruin the reputations of the rest of them. I avoid facts and logic when debating with liberalprogressivesocialists because it clouds the issue for them.

I will take 3x as many "delusional" Americans because then we will end up with 3x as many success stories like Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Dave Thomas, Frank Phillips, Howard Hughes, Walt Disney, George Lucas, etc, etc, etc. What you call delusional, we call hopeful. We call it believing in yourself. We are Can Do and you are obviously Cannot Do...want some cheese with your whine? Like I was told by my Can Do parents... "If you don't swing, you don't hit." The best you can do is get a walk. That means your fate is up to the pitcher and you are just a bystander.

His conception of political morality is based on a highly abstract state of nature in which free and rational delegates devise the basic rules that will govern society from behind a veil of ignorance. This veil, important because it denies all participants all knowledge of their future gender, race, social status, wealth, as well as what will make them happy, forces the delegates to endorse policies that may possibly favor other individuals over themselves, and thereby benefit the whole of society. So, based on a maximin principle, the delegates, in pursuing their own advantage, end up pursuing the advantage of all. They choose this option, since the non-maximin options have possible outcomes that are disastrous and significantly worse then the guaranteed level of the maximin choice, and, more importantly, because the worst possible outcome of the maximin option is satisfactory to everyone. Subsequently, it is Rawls' belief that this deliberation would undeniably lead the delegates to choose his two principles of justice, which provide for equal basic liberty and fair equality of opportunity. The latter principle dictates that social goods be arranged so that they are to the greatest advantage of the least advantaged, and attached to offices/positions that are open to all. If you understand that- and you understand Rawls belief in Justice as Fairness- it is NOT a leap of faith to see that the negotiators in the OP would have no choice but to pick the the pie chart on the right. This author misses the core of what John held dear in his beliefs. And if you studied with him- you should find this writers conclusions to be way off base. "Likewise, if the American level of inequality could be shown to maximise the position of the least advantaged...". NO WAY. John would never support Paul Ryan. And the author is subtly suggesting he might.

Your summary of Rawls's theory is accurate all the way up to, but not including, your conclusion: "the negotiators in the OP would have no choice but to pick the the pie chart on the right."

The representatives in the OP do not choose pie charts! They choose principles of justice, as you indicated in your summary. Rawls's "pure procedural justice" holds that principles, not outcomes, are what makes an arrangement just. So distributions, by themselves, are neither here nor there in terms of "justice."

Need textual support? Here is what Rawls writes on p. 50 of "Justice as Fairness":

"When everyone follows the publicly recognized rules of cooperation, and honors the claims the rules specify, the particular distributions of goods that result are acceptable as just (or at least not unjust) whatever these distributions turn out to be."

The author wasn't suggesting Rawls would be a Ryanite! The last paragraph of the post shows that clearly.

Your summary of Rawls's theory is accurate all the way up to, but not including, your conclusion: "the negotiators in the OP would have no choice but to pick the the pie chart on the right."

The representatives in the OP do not choose pie charts! They choose principles of justice, as you indicated in your summary. Rawls's "pure procedural justice" holds that principles, not outcomes, are what makes an arrangement just. So distributions, by themselves, are neither here nor there in terms of "justice."

Need textual support? Here is what Rawls writes on p. 50 of "Justice as Fairness":

"When everyone follows the publicly recognized rules of cooperation, and honors the claims the rules specify, the particular distributions of goods that result are acceptable as just (or at least not unjust) whatever these distributions turn out to be."

The author wasn't suggesting Rawls would be a Ryanite! The last paragraph of the post shows that clearly.

You are misguided- and my conclusion is hardly wrong. Your textual support does not negate a word I said. Nor does is negate my conclusion. You are deriving the wrong understanding by removing one sentence in a theory that spans close to 1,000 pages. Your quote HARDLY implies that the first chart is acceptable. John did not condone- nor would he ever condone- the kind of inequality implicit in this discussion. Moreover- the author absolutely is making that subtle suggestion- read the whole piece. And if you are the author- you may wish to rethink this one.

The original position is not an historical state of affairs, but rather a hypothetical situation in which the participants are rational and disinterested thinkers. As such, the deliberators are not trying to ensure an outcome that meets an already existing standard of justice, but rather they are aiming for a universal acceptance of an agreed upon point of view. And- to imply that the two principles are not designed to lead to anything greater is absurd. Of course they are. No Rawls did not speak specifically about pie charts. But to not see the possibility of a causal chain between his principles and this is disingenuous. If all you wish to argue about is whether his thought experiment could possibly be extended to pie charts-- you are missing the thrust of what he wrote about and what he stood for. He believed that undeserved inequalities at the social starting positions deserve to be redressed.

"It would be very hard to argue that the extent of inequality we see today in America is necessary to benefit its least well-off citizens, much less that it maximises their welfare. As Joseph Stiglitz argues in his new book, the costs of extreme inequality include 'an economic system that is less stable and less efficient, with less growth, and a democracy that has been put into peril.' No society with a poverty rate approaching 16% can be said to be doing all it can to raise the level of the most disadvantaged."

Where is the "subtle suggestion" here that Rawls would cheer the current state of affairs in the United States or support a Romney/Rand ticket?! The post makes exactly the opposite point.

Yes, he was very concerned about undeserved inequalities skewing later distributions...which is why he thinks the OP representatives would choose the two principles of justice to make sure that natural or circumstantial inequalities are not entrenched politically.

But inequalities that come later are not *necessarily* unjust. To understand why, you need to read the section on "legitimate expectations" in Rawls's Justice as Fairness. Rawls was not a strict egalitarian when it came to income and wealth; he only opposed inequalities that violated norms of fairness. That said, as I wrote in my other comment, he would certainly deplore the U.S. distribution today. The post was making a technical point when it claimed that the American pie chart wouldn't be problematic "if the American level of inequality could be shown to maximise the position of the least advantaged." That's true, formally. But the author hastens to add that this is "unlikely" and then shows how it is impossible to view the American system as satisfying the difference principle.

This is a long way of saying we really agree on the substance of the matter. Cheers.

You might as well subtitled this article: Ready, Set, Now Post Inflammatory Visceral Arguments, Go!

But I found this part interesting

"Think of it as the difference between cutting up a pizza and giving everyone slices (allocative justice) and developing principles according to which various amounts of pizza end up on people’s plates (distributive justice). In the latter case, no allocator divides the pie for everyone else."

Thomas Sowell, somewhat of hero of mine, referred to this as the constrained vs the unconstrained approach to socioeconomic equality. He was discussing equal opportunity laws in his book Conflict of Visions (read it!!).

I agree with the points made by the author, but would question Rawl’s underlying assumptions. In Theory of Justice, he sets out a several probability scenarios where the individual who is “behind a veil of ignorance” is asked to choose which a set of social benefits based on a range of outcomes. The first is where the likely outcome is 50/50, 70/30 etc. Even when there is more of a chance in ending up in the better off portion of society, Rawls maintains the individual will choose a more egalitarian outcome.
But if you assume an uneven probability (anything other than 50/50) in the distribution of wealth then it’s not necessarily clear any more that you would still opt for a more egalitarian option. Rawls makes the assumption that the individual behind the veil is risk averse, rather than a risk taker, thus already assuming that the behavioural characteristics of the individual are inherently risk averse. I’m not sure that you can necessarily remove someone’s inherent behavioural characteristics even when they are behind the veil. Or can you?

I wonder whether Rawls ever went to listen to Popper while in England. " The Open Society and Its Enemies" was published in 1945, so Rawls must have been aware of that book, one would think, and that its author was teaching at the London School of Economics. Just curious.

I still cant understand why since all these conversations about "fairness", "inequality", "income gaps", "unemployment" started NOBODY, and I mean not just bloggers, but also journalists,editorials, "experts", fail to, ignore, disregard, or simply AVOID talking about the REAL causes of today's level of inequalities in the US.

I've only read ONE article pinpointing those causes... Every source that ignores: Technology, Globalization, Insourcing, Outsourcing and most of all, Individual's drive, has no merit. It's just pure whining, wishful thinking, red-herring, blaming the wrong sources and relying on effect (rather than cause) statistics to make a point.

If there are FEW producers of a particular item that has worldwide consumption, I hate to use Microsoft or Iphone as examples again, but it is such a good one, then there IS NO WAY you can deter the massive profits they have....and consequentially, you will have fortune makers of extravagant amounts. No "equalizing" hard work from middle class individuals can compete there. Just as there is no way to compete with technology. No matter what people want to believe, IT IS TRUE that one ATM has replaced 40 human tellers in a bank, and so forth.

Anyway, here is the article...the only one that Ive seen addressed the issue up front.

Thanks for giving us that link, Thatseasy. I read it all. It certainly supplied more information, and did a good job of pointing out that so-called 'tax expenditures', which most people call loopholes, contribute enormously to inequality of result.

But it signally failed to point out that such loopholes have been instigated by the advantaged; they were not consented to by the disadvantaged. That may sound a strange point to make but it is a necessary to one to make if we are to be honest with each other as a society. And I think it is lurking suspicions of gross dishonesties -- suspicions fueled enormously by the financial scandals we are now hearing about so frequently -- that is at the root of inter-class hostility.

I remember hearing once a Jewish writer complaining that Muslims are not bearing their fare share of keeping bad behaviour among Muslim-born people in check. My immediate thought was that, in this era, the elite of Western societies, and particularly the elite in America, are not doing their fair share of keeping bad behaviour among elite-born people in check.

" My immediate thought was that, in this era, the elite of Western societies, and particularly the elite in America, are not doing their fair share of keeping bad behaviour among elite-born people in check."

Very astute observation. Well, you see, the majority of the so-called "elite" in America is merely one - at the most two - generations away from a lower - sometimes quite a bit lower - social strata than the one that is commonly called "elite". So, they have no long-term family history about how one ought to behave in order to both maintain one's social and financial status and not degrade the general welfare of the society they have come to rule. The most glaring example of this is the stunningly imbecilic behavior of the financial sector of of our country (US) in the last few decades, but in particular the last decade. If you take the trouble to read up on the leaders of the financial fiasco we all are suffering from, you will find that the overwhelming majority of them did not come from backgrounds that could be called particularly privileged. That is just the point. The beggar always wants the rich man as a brother; exchange them in their positions and you won't be able to tell the difference. It takes a few generations to acquire the habits of thought and behavior of the new social strata they have elevated themselves into. In the UK this manifests itself in the crass behavior of the Laborites who got new titles; and now behave worse than the old-titled folks they pretended to sneer at not that long ago. Remember all those tax cheats charging the government (UK) for all sorts of ridiculous expenses? Well, they just did not have a chance to go big with their game, that's all. Had they had a chance to to loot some treasury, like our thugs did here in the US, I am quite convinced that they would have had no compunction to do so. Anyway, just remember what good old G. K. Chesterton had to say about those so-called elites, anywhere: " There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob." But, of course, those wise ones who know what is good for us, and have all the theories to prove it, would/will be different, right?...

There is the proverb "It takes three generations to make a gentleman." These days it looks as if it will take many more, because the competition appears to be about who is the more nouveau among the nouveau riche .

Thanks, Garaboncias. I think you and I have found, at length, some common ground of assumption. Yet I seriously wonder if the issue is just one of 'nouveaute', although I agree that may well be a big factor.

I have a theory that the major portion of the issue lies in the forms of language (linguistics) by which we conventionally, in a millisecond, use pronouns -- particularly the pronoun 'I'. Ordinarily we select the words we use in connection with the word 'I', for example, with very little thinking in the present. For example, I used to say "I am an executive coach", but then one day I re-cognized that that is not my essence but rather the social identity by which I want to be recognized so that I can make a living. IOW, all such 'I am ....' statements are, to some degree, incomplete.

This brought up for me the issue of how to express in words my authentic self. It also brought up the issue for me of how to do that in a way that was empathic -- recognizing that, as Erich Fromm wrote in 1942 in his classic "Escape from Freedom", human beings feel very UNcomfortable in communication until either the pecking order is established, in which case issues of deference or resentment contaminate problem-solving conversation, or an intimacy of equals has become recognized as 'de facto' in the relationship, which can take for ever or never happen at all.

My solution to this dilemma is (a) to avoid forms of I-statement that begin "I am ....", and (b) to practise, in moments of conversational difficulty, I-statements of the form "I have 'X emotion' now" (IHXEN, where 'X emotion' is limited to a noun phrase selected as honestly as one can). Example: "I have excited concentration now". This solution came initially to me overnight after a prayer and later I discovered why this was an organicly valuable solution.

The reason is that exchange of honest IHXENs provides us -- in moments when we are feeling a potentially overwhelming challenge in a serious problem-solving conversation -- with the simplest means, accessible to anyone having basic proficiency in English, of experiencing both the relief of verbalizing something and the best each of us can in that challenging moment contribute of our authentic selves without risk of letting out something that might be inadvertently disconnecting, i.e. mistaken as hostility, deception, or lacking in empathy.

IOW, I had found an easy-to-understand way to build trust in difficult situations where trust appeared likely to break down.

Relying on this finding empowered me to relate to entrepreneurs and their organizations in a way that has proved to yield astonishing benefits. You can read a narrative of one such coaching relationship -- a 5-page narrative that includes the financial results and a detailed testimonial at this URL ...

What a ghastly thought, Ashbird. Yet, I wonder if, after reading my reply to Garaboncias, you and I might hope that the production cycle for genuninely 'gentlemanly/womanly' conduct might be shortened by the psycho-linguistic approaches described there.

I read the article. Interesting. In order for me to address the basic issues you had called attention to, I'd have to delve into too many subjects and too deeply. That is not the scope of this blog. I will attempt a quick summary as I understood the article. The basic issue is transmitting knowledge (that is a huge subject in and by itself) between two individuals. This is timeless. The power between the one who teaches and the one who learns is a very tricky one. Both parties must want to do their part to the best of their capabilities is an absolute requirement. It is far from a given in any teacher/student set-up. We cannot escape the innate characteristics of the language that is used for this activity. In English we don't have formal and informal addressing. In Hindi there are three levels of formality/intimacy one can address another. So, we are bound inevitably by language from the beginning of the exercise. Not using "I", and all that you mention, is helping one to think a little more objectively, but the fundamentals of the language will still define the exchange of thoughts. This whole theory of language is huge. The importance of language was best defined by Wittgenstein: " The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Erich Fromm. Yes, he had some great thoughts/ideas. My favorite one is his classification of people as those who want "to have", and those who want "to be". I don't think it can be changed, merely softened, what our essence is. That is one of the aims of education. Not schooling, mind you, but education. Those two are very far from being the same...
Back to the article. Do you think that the participants of your article should now give up, on demand, the gained advantages to those who did not make the same efforts (were either unwilling or unable) , because those feel that they, too, should enjoy the benefits in the name of fairness?...

" There is the proverb "It takes three generations to make a gentleman." These days it looks as if it will take many more, because the competition appears to be about who is the more nouveau among the nouveau riche ."

Yes. Or, they will revert to their original characters and social standings. There is another saying that involves three generations: " In three generations from shirt sleeve to shirt sleeve". I think those two sayings are very observant. The first generation must teach its children properly/correctly in order to stay at the newly acquired level of life; or their grandkids will end up where they started from - and dragging everyone else with them...

Have particularly enjoyed reading your comments in this thread. The Wittgenstein quote is forcefully apropo. Never understood how any contrary idea would hold. How can our conscious world exceed our conscious language? All the more reason to never stop the effort at education. And imagine, each discipline of learning has its own language. People don't appreciate that enough. Eric Fromm is among my most favorite thinkers. He wrote in such simple language people dismiss him for being a "soft thinker". What a mistake! Did you read his last book published postumously?

"...or they will revert to their original characters..."

Right though! Actually the original character never left and so never had to be reverted to. We don't teach our children by what we say. Everybody says enough. Parents no different. We teach our children by what we do. Those things are indelible. One act will register for an entire life time of a child. And those things are what get passed on. Life is not made by slogans churned up by Madison Avenue. There is the appearance of that in America. That is the problem.

Thank you for your reply to me. I read your reply to Garaboncias. Here are my thoughts -

Various writers have made a distinction between "authentic self" and "false self" (Klein, Fairbairn, Sutherland, Kernberg, Masterson, etc.). In the context of analysis, Mario Jacoby sees a distinction between the "I-It Relationship" and the "I-Thou Relationship". The terms and concepts have developed from persistent attempts in the field of psychology to understand the nature of the "encounter" between two people when one interacts with another. Whatever this nature is, it is the stuff all human relationships are made of. A serious discussion on this subject is beyond the scope of this thread, this DiA post, and this magazine.

My own view relevant to the topic of "equality" is that regardless of the approach from which we view the problem of equality - psychodynamic, empirical, or, modernly since late 1970's, neurological, each generation inevitably has much to hand down to the next. In so far as the pursuit of any society is arrested at the material level, equality will forever remain unattainable. Indeed, even its very definition will forever evade concensus among the very same people who want it.

Thanks for reading the engagement narrative. Interesting that you termed it an article ... I very much appreciate the time you devoted to doing so, and for the most part feel in close alignment with your observations.

I think that English speakers often use the terms 'language' and 'language usage' a bit too carelessly, i.e. neglect often to distinguish between the considerably different meanings of the two terms. You and Ashbird are clearly not doing that nearly as often as English speakers do who have never been comfortable in another language. But perhaps, Garaboncias (from Goa perhaps?), this distinction escapes even you occasionally when you are thinking/writing in English. I mention this because your comments suggest to me that you might possibly have missed something that I very much want the piece you read to convey.

This something is that, by shifting the form of I-statement English speakers are accustomed to using from solely "I am ..." to add the option of "I have ...", two or more people with that usage more readily available to them than is 'normal' among English speakers can learn together to find solutions to problems that formerly had been eluding them simply because habitual sole usage of "I am ..." statements can, and manifestly sometimes does, pit such 'normal English speakers' UNWITTINGLY into camps conventionally believed to be oppositional.

This point is, I believe, a potentially crucially valuable one for the human species in that, for the forseeable future, a preponderance by money amount of economic decision-making will be taking place in conversations between 'normal English speakers' -- even if we allow the word 'normal' to refer equally to each of the multiplicity of norms that exist in the various vernaculars of English around the globe.

IOW, the shift from confinement to sole use of "I am ..." I-statements to emancipation into actually having, IN CHALLENGING MOMENTS, a choice to contribute an "I have 'X emotion' now" I-statement, is worth having as an educational goal in every vernacular within or between such vernaculars of English around the globe. Agree?

You also asked: "Do you think that the participants of your article should now give up, on demand, the gained advantages to those who did not make the same efforts (were either unwilling or unable) , because those feel that they, too, should enjoy the benefits in the name of fairness?..."

Great question!!! My answer is that I believe that, were all English speakers to know what equanimity is, by contrast to 'emotioned', and were we, as a global English-speaking community, to set 'equanimity' rather than some measurable concept of 'fairness' as our socially sanctioned goal for ALL individuals, the question you have raised would then answer itself in any particular situation -- to ALL our long-term benefits.

Thanks, Ashbird, for reading my reply to Garaboncias and also your mentions of Klein, Fairbairn, Sutherland, Kernberg, Masterson, and Jacoby. I agree with your observations relative to equality, and appreciate your comments reminding me about the focus of this (TE) article.

Your and Garaboncias' posts have been very interesting, and nothwithstanding the focus issue you highlight, I feel pretty sure you will enjoy my further exchange here with Garboncias, perhaps even enough to lure you into reading the 5 pages of the link I offered ... and possibly ... just possibly ... also into making a comment on the narrative there.

In any case, I look forward to reading more posts from you in TE blogs.

The lack of equality of a sympton a much larger diseases: low social mobility, and low political participation.

Inequality is not a problem if people who work hard and wise can climb the ladder while people who make poor decisions decline in the ladder, but current US is divided into factions by (sometimes mutually uncomprimising and hostile) interest groups in both the left and right (too-big-to-fail large business, and powerful trade/labour unions) which is preventing the needed flux in social mobility. The "American Dream" is fundementally damaged by excessive influence of interest groups.

This is closely related low political participation and influence by many in the public - low voter turn outs, unable to get access to elected leaders unless you are among the big interest groups, too many poorly informed voters who just vote GOP or Democrat because they have always voted that way.

If the above problems can be addressed, then economic inequality will not be a problem, and I actually will not mind it. What needed is equality before political influence not equality in wealth.

Yes, exactly. Wealth/income inequality per se is not objectionable if the society is set up appropriately and fairly. That is what Rawls means by "pure procedural justice": if the rules of the game are fair and society's institutions are properly constituted, the outcomes will be just (or as he says, "at least not unjust"), no matter what they are.

A few years ago when US Supreme Court strike down a bipartisian law that is aim at reducing the influence of Super-PAC. It was a sad day as the US Consitution is used as a weapon against equalizing the political field. Is it time for a consitution reform? The biggest difficulty is now that interest groups are actually effectively stopping the rules to equalize political playing field from happening.

Nothing will change without the voters actually speak that they want consitution reform. May be too many is too foolish to know that is actually needed? Oh, does the very info pumped to voters via media owned by the very persons who is against consitution reform to level the political field?

The U.S. Constitution is very hard to alter. The people can protest all they want, but the only avenue for constitutional amendment is through Article V, which requires 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures to approve a change. In an era when even bare majorities on matters that should not stir controversy (raising the debt ceiling, e.g.) are hard to come by, real constitutional reform seems out of reach.

The Constitution has been amended many times, dealing with problems far more substantial than political spending. The problem with this issue is that it attacks our first Amendment rights - the right to assemble and act collectively.

Mongo is it just "if you wish" then, that you can work hard enough to go up? 86% don't wish to work hard enough, is that it? Perhaps someone should tell them that.
To have such views must make you sleep very well at night, treasure them.

There is a psychological problem with wealth as a measure. Wealth is net worth (for the purposes of this study) so if I have the same lifetime earnings as you but have borrowed less and saved more I am wealthier than you, even if I may seem to be less well-off. Naturally if you borrowed to buy something of durable value like property this might not be true; provided property values hold.

Perhaps ranking by lifetime earnings would not change things much in reality - but it woud at least seem a lot more fair!

I have to add that the charts are particularly poorly conceived. Same-color slices should represent the wealth percentage controlled by the same quintiles in both charts, which they obviously do not. Also, in the chart on the right, the slices ought to be ordered from biggest to smallest as well.

That is, if the slices represent percentage of wealth controlled by respective quintiles, as I came to understand after careful rereading of the article and linking some numbers in the charts to those found in the text.

Astonishing, or maybe not, that the general population of the country which is foremost in science and knowledge is living in a kind of lala land where everybody can become a Prez and Grand-Dad slugged it out with dinosaurs.

This may point to an inequality even less fair and more nefarious than the financial one.